Small Bravery
by Pyrasaur
Summary: Courage has stood by her, a friend through hard times and through the silliest little problems. A friend's nudge is all Tifa ever needs.


Strange. Even when her fear and uncertainty ran deep, rolling dark oceans of them, there was always that brave spark that told Tifa what to do. Fighting or loving -- they were the same. _Try,_ the spark always said, _try. You can do it._

Maybe that bright courage had helped Tifa speak while looking up at the stars so long ago. Maybe it had carried her through so many heartfuls of hurt, through those endless battles where her bones screamed and her blood ran slick but she was full of fire inside. The spark was a sly thing but she still knew it well; it was a friend, and a reliable one. So she listened, took its advice and tried, tried, kept trying even when everything hurt.

Maybe that was why she listened as months passed and the spark found a velvet-dark thought, latched on and coaxed it into a dream, an aching wish. The spark murmured -- true, she wanted something more than dear Cloud had to give and what harm could it do, asking that something from a friend? Like asking a favour. _You can,_ the spark sang and its warmth hummed in her veins, _Vincent's name tastes savoury-safe. Try. _

That had to be where she found the nerve to linger, just the faintest brush of her fingertips on the back of his long-fingered hand where there was no real need for it, no excuse in the world. And his eyes narrowed that slightest, considering bit that would be a shout on any other man; he knew, didn't he? Could probably read every thought and wish and whim in her, he _noticed_ things and what had Tifa been thinking? She wondered about it on the hot rush, the candy-sour wave of embarassment that just wouldn't fade. What a silly, girlish thing to do, but the spark didn't see it that way. _Courage,_ it crooned, _is success, trying is success. Wasn't that magic?_

And no one but the spark could have talked her into it again, into more silly girlish things and carefully tucked words -- it felt like looking up at Nibelheim's stars had, almost. Finding the nerve to speak and to feel when her soul was hung out in night air, flapping in the wind for everyone to see. Especially Vincent, god, nothing got by him, and just how many prods would it take for the cool thought on his face to turn to something else?

Not many, it seemed. That had to be how they came to be sitting too far apart on a couch, in a room much too quiet, with Tifa studying her right thumbnail so she wouldn't have to meet his knowing eyes -- no amount of courage could help her do that. _Try,_ the spark murmured, maybe to itself.

After a thousand years of silence, of agony and thickness in the air, Vincent asked what she meant by it all. Just like that, a simple question that she couldn't seem to find an answer for; when had she started shaking inside at the sound of his growl-soft voice? She hadn't always; it was the sort of change she really should have noticed.

And Tifa tried to answer him, she really did. There was just too much to squeeze sense out of, all the flash-frozen memories of her silly girlish flirting, the feel of a room's air when Vincent was silently present, the fear-surprise flush of opening that coffin and every mood she had ever seen flickering over his not-so-cold face. She didn't know but the spark did, it always knew and it gave her brave fire, it whispered _try. You can do it, it'll be all right._

And words were hopeless so she moved instead, moved as smoothly as in blood-desperate battle, like she was weak and scared and reaching for Materia anyway. She sat in her wonderful teammate's lap and curled against his chest, heard his briefest rasp of surprised breath and looked at his copper-shining claw instead of her thumbnail, and her heart was racing and each beat stabbed, it was so hard to feel anything but anxious. But the spark was right, maybe it was fine after all. There Tifa was, sitting with him. And her startled senses crept back -- there was Vincent's cloak rough against her temple, red and black at her edge of vision, seeping body warmth and the smell she could only place as male, a friend, presence.

She told him she was figuring out different kinds of love. If anyone could understand that, Vincent could. The fear's song quieted, the world was small and safe and then he murmured something like agreement, blessed agreement thunder-rumbling in his chest. Fingers slid through Tifa's hair, rested light against her neck and oh, she had no idea what that feeling was darting electric down her spine and didn't entirely care -- it _was_ all right, all of this. She listened to his breathing and it was sweet victory.

The spark was there in the middle of it all, her brave little friend. It purred satisfaction and sat there warm with her, with both of them and with everything. _You've done well, _it said. _Knew you could._


End file.
